695th Anniversary of the Death of Jacques de Molay

March 18th is the 695th Anniversary of death of Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ, the Knights Templar.

He was born in the eastern French village of Molay in 1244 or 45. Almost nothing is known of his early life, but he joined the Templars at the age of 21 in 1265, and served 42 years as a warrior monk.

In 1291, the Holy Land fell back into the hands of the infidel, and would never fully return to Christian rule. The Templars and the Knights Hospitallers fell back to the coastal city of Acre, which was quickly lost. Both orders subsequently went to the island of Cyprus. The Templars remained here, while the Hospitallers later took the island of Rhodes. That too would be lost eventually, and the Hospitallers eventually settled in Malta, where they became known as the knights of Malta. In spite of the modern Masonic orders that unite these two orders of knights, they were bitter rivals for the wealth and favor of Europe and the Church.

Jacques de Molay was elected Grand Master in 1293 at the age of 47. Immediately he set off to England, France, Aragon and Italy to drum up support for a new crusade to the Holy Land, as well as to fend off a growing call for merging the two orders of knights. Politiucally, the Templars were regarded as the men who lost the Holy Land, and monarchies were becoming distrustful of them. France in particular was feeling overrun with returning, aging knights, who still were free from any kind of taxation or even civil laws, by virtue of Papal bulls that held the order above anyone but the Pope.

King Phillip IV of France and his personal henchman Guillaume de Nogaret had been in severe conflict with the then-reigning pope, Boniface VIII. The pope had declared that the king of France had no right to tax Church property, and the king had, obviously, disagreed. De Nogaret kidnapped an important French bishop, and the pope had come out swinging over it. He issued a papal bull proclaiming that kings must be subordinate to the Church, and that popes held ultimate authority over both spiritual and temporal matters on earth. To make sure they got the message, Boniface excommunicated Phillip and de Nogaret. Phillip answered his challenge by sending the brutal, devious and bad-tempered de Nogaret at the head of an army to meet up with Italian allies and capture the pope. Boniface was indeed kidnapped and held for three days. After literally being beaten to a pulp, he was released and died a month later. The French king had proved just who was subordinate to whom, and he didn’t mind a little papal blood on his hands. Pope Boniface’s successor, Pope Benedict XI, lasted only a year in office, poisoned, it was said, by de Nogaret.

But there had been diplomatic difficulties to suffer for killing two popes. Consequently, King Phillip decided it would be easier to just buy one. He began procuring cardinals, pulling strings behind the scenes until the number of French cardinals in the Vatican’s College of Cardinals was equal to the Italian ones. They then obligingly elected his handpicked candidate, Bertrand de Goth, making him Pope Clement V. The city of Rome was in turmoil, and the safety of the Vatican was in question. So, it didn’t take much to convince the new French pope that his life would be in serious danger by living there. Clement obliged by staying in France, having his ceremony of investiture in Lyons. He remained in France, eventually moving the Holy See to the city of Avignon (which was actually owned by the King of Sicily at the time) in 1309, right on Phillip’s back door step, where he built a new papal palace. Catholics often refer to it as the “Babylonian Captivity.” Nowadays it’s usually called the Avignon Papacy or the Great Schism.

Clement had everything Phillip wanted in a pope: he was puny, weak, new in the job, and owed everything to his French king. Now was the time for the boldest move of Phillip’s reign – the arrest of the Knights Templar.

Jacques de Molay left Cyprus to head straight for a meeting with the new Pope, and he had high hopes for success, especially since they were countrymen. He couldn’t at this point have known of the dark forces that were assembling against him behind the scenes. In June of 1307, de Molay rode into Paris at the head of a column of his knights, with a dozen horses laden with gold and silver, to begin the financing the new Crusade. For the next several months, Phillip treated the aging Grand Master with interest and diplomacy, and de Molay believed he and the Order were at a new turning point.

The circumstances of the arrests on October 13th, 1307, and seven years of trials of the Templars are well known to most of us, but we are most concerned with the last Grand Master tonight. By 1314, both the pope and public opinion had abandoned the Knights Templar. The four senior Templar officers in Phillip’s custody had been waiting in prison for seven grim years. All of them were old, the youngest being Geoffroi de Charney, who was almost 60. Jacques de Molay was in his 70s, and had spent four years in solitary confinement.

The four men were finally led onto a platform in front of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral to hear the charges and make their public confessions. The charges were read, and two of the men accepted their fate of perpetual imprisonment and were led away.

But Jacques de Molay, and his trusted follower Geoffroi de Charney, did not follow suit. Weakened with age and imprisonment, de Molay shouted in a voice that startled the assembly that he and the Templars were innocent of all the charges. They were returned to their cells at once, while Phillip called together his council and quickly pronounced sentence, using the insane logic of the Inquisition; if they had recanted their confessions, then they were considered “relapsed heretics,” and the penalty was the stake.

Late that afternoon, de Molay and de Charney were led to the place of execution, which was a tiny isolated island adjacent to the Isle de la Citè, called the Ile-des-Juifs, the “Island of the Jews.” The condemned men could see Notre Dame Cathedral in the east, but the site was not chosen for their view. Rather, it was chosen so that King Phillip could enjoy the entertainment without leaving his palace just across the River Seine.

Each man was stripped down to his shirt and tied to the stake. Jacques de Molay, with unbelievable courage, asked not only that he be turned to face the Cathedral, but that his hands be freed, so that he could die at prayer. His request was granted. The two men were roasted alive by the Inquisitional method that began slowly with hot coals, so that their agony could be prolonged as much as possible. It was dusk on March 19th, 1314.


When the Pont Neuf was built, the Île des Juifs was joined to the rest of the Île de la Cité, and today there are not one but two plaques near the bridge to commemorate this event. According to legend, Jacques de Molay did not go to his God in silence. Instead, he died defiantly shouting his innocence and that of the Templars, calling on King Phillip and Pope Clement to meet him before the throne of God in one year’s time, where they would all be judged together. Creepily enough, both men, relatively young, would be dead within the year. One month after the death of de Molay, Pope Clement V, age 54, died, it was said of cancer. Phillip the Fair, age 46, would die in a hunting accident probably brought on by a stroke. He died on November 29th.

A non-Masonic order of modern Knights Templar claim deMolay appointed a successor to himself secretly, and the order survived the centuries. Masonic Templars make no such claim, but the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem tells the tale that DeMolay’s skull and leg bones were pulled from the ashes and secretly buried with the document of succession, called the Larmenius Charter. Others claim that during the French revolution, as King Louis XVI’s head was chopped off by the guillotine, someone rushed up from the crowd and proclaimed, “Jacques De Molay, Thou art avenged!”

The gruesome death of Jacques de Molay is the last act of the Templar story. At least, the last act of the accepted, scholarly story of the Knights Templar that is told, in names and dates, between the covers of the history books. But in reality, his death is only the beginning. It’s the beginning of the myth of the Knights Templar, which is the maelstrom around which an endless stream of fact blended with speculation swirls, unabated.

(Adapted from The Templar Code For Dummies)

National Geographic's "Secrets of the Knights Templar"

The National Geographic Channel will rerun its program about the Knights Templar in the week before Easter. Secrets of the Knights Templar will air Monday, April 6, 2009, at 9 PM ET/PT, as part of a pre-Easter lineup purporting to explore the "secrets" of Christianity.

Book: "The American Fraternal Sword"

"Are we knights?"
"Do you want to be?"

Remember in National Treasure when young Benjamin Gates finds grandpa's Knight Templar sword in the attic? That scene gets repeated in real life every day in dozens of attics and basements. They can be from the Masonic Knights Templar, the Knights of Pythias, the Catholic Knights of Columbus, the Grand Army of the Republic, or a bumper crop of other fraternal groups who jumped on the drill team bandwagon after the Civil War ended. When the war ended, the military uniform and sword suppliers went looking for new business, and like Harold Hill selling band uniforms in The Music Man, they created a craze for marching and sword drilling in parades. Men returning home from the war sought the camaraderie and the trappings of military life (made far more enjoyable by not having people shooting at them anymore, and knowing they could go home at the end of the day). Thus, the fraternal sword came to be a treasured possession for literally hundreds of thousands of men across the US, from the 1860s up through today (albeit in much smaller numbers these days). Some were plain, some were ornate, but all were the symbol of a modern knighthood, and a tradition of honor and chivalry.

A new book has just been published that will make identifying that long hidden fraternal sword simpler. The American Fraternal Sword: An Illustrated Reference Guide by John D. Hamilton, Joseph Marino and James Kaplan. According to the website, it contains more than 900 color photos, showing almost 600 different swords, arranged by organization, with a directory of manufacturers, organizations and their insignia. Pricey ay $79.99, but absolutely invaluable for collectors, dealers, and your Templar commandery.

John D. Hamilton was the curator at the Scottish Rite's National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Massachusetts for many years, and he is the author of "Material Culture of the American Freemasons."

Thanks to Mark Tabbert for the heads up on this.

March is Dummies Month

Pardon a shameless bit of capitalistic promotion, but it's one that ultimately helps you. March is officially "Dummies Month," and the good folks at Wiley Publishing have a regular program every year at this time. Buy a Dummies book or audio set and get a $5 rebate (up to two per family).

That means you can buy one or two Dummies books on any subject (not just ours) between March 1st - 31st, 2009, and get $5 smackers each delivered to your majestic manse's mailbox direct from the publisher. In addition, the Wiley folks will also send along another $5 mail-in rebate form for any Dummies book purchased in June, July or August 2009.

Now obviously we would like you to take this opportunity to plunk down your hard-earned pelf and procure our books: Freemasons For Dummies, The Templar Code For Dummies, and Conspiracy Theories & Secret Societies For Dummies. Think of it as an economic stimulus package. We do have a poodle to support, after all. But there are more than 1,300 Dummies titles out there, and we would certainly understand if you already own ours...

You can download a pdf of the rebate form here.

Barbara Frale's "The Templars: The Secret History Revealed"

Just tearing into the long-awaited English translation of Barbara Frale's 2004 book, The Templars: The Secret History Revealed (2009, Arcade Publishing). Frale, a staff historian with the Vatican Secret Archives, is credited with rediscovering in 2001 the Chinon Parchment, the record of the papal investigation into the charges against the medieval Order, and the subsequent pardon to them granted by Pope Clement V.

The brief foreword by Umberto Eco has the following priceless remarks: "No other subject has ever inspired more hacks from more countries throughout time than the Templars. . . The only way to determine if a book on the Templars is serious is to check if it ends in 1314..."

Only complaint so far is that it does not have a translation of the Chinon document itself.

Michael Spradlin's "The Youngest Templar"

Check out Michael Spradlin's website for his new book, The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail.

I endorse his book even if his website bio claims he has an irrational fear of Hoosiers (both Indiana and the Gene Hackman movie).

NBC's "The Last Templar" Website and Preview

The website for NBC's miniseries, "The Last Templar," based on Raymond Khoury's novel, is up and running, with a new preview. Premieres January 25th.

The new and Improved Knight Templar Magazine

Chapeaux off and huzzahs to the Knight Templar Magazine and its editor Sir Knight John Palmer. Over the last few months, with the strong encouragement of Most Eminant Grand Master Koon, the monthly magazine has shed its dated, black and white skin, cut back on grip-n-grin (GAG) photos, and been reborn. It now hits mailboxes in full color, with limited advertising, color photos, an increase in pages, and honest-to-goodness articles about Templarism (both medieval and modern), chivalry, Christian history, archeology, and symbolism. And SK Palmer has assembled a prestigious lineup for the mag's editorial board: Rex Hutchens, Stephen Dafoe, Aaron Shoemaker, Leroy Delionbach, Terry Plemons, and Sid Dorris.

In addition to going out to 130,000 Templars every month, it is also available online at www.issu.com.

Dafoe's Templar Comic "Outremer" No. 1 Now Available

Back in the days when I was a much smaller Hodapp, I engaged in that time-honored practice of kiddom: reading under the covers with a flashlight when I was supposed to be doing something more useful, like sleeping. Even at that age, I reckoned, there’ll be plenty of time for sleep when you die. Mad Magazine, comics from Stan Lee or the DC guys would always land me in the preadolescent version of the slammer, but there was always one line of comics sure to save me from a late-night bawling out: Classics Illustrated. This line of comics did just what it sounds like. They took classic stories (The Three Musketeers, House of the Seven Gables, War of the Worlds, and more than a hundred others), splashed them in full color across kid-friendly pages, and kept me far more interested than any of that malarky about some self-appointed do-gooder in tights from Krypton.

Author Stephen Dafoe has written about the Knights Templar from almost every conceivable angle over the years—as straight history (Nobly Born), as speculation (The Warriors and the Bankers), and most recently, the origins and growth of the Masonic Knights Templar Order (The Compasses and the Cross). Now, he and artist Bob Prodor’s new comic book treatment of the medieval Knight Templar, Outremer, presents the Order in a way no one has done before, and it brings back my fond memories of those Classics Illustrated of my youth, for all of the same reasons. It tells the legendary story of the origin, rise and fall of the Templars in the Holy Land, and it does it with action-packed style. Issue One: Origins introduces Hughes de Payens and Geoffroi de St. Omer in the hills outside of Jerusalem, protecting pilgrims from attacks by Arab bandits. Through their eyes, the history of Jerusalem and the First Crusade to capture the Holy Land from the Infidel unfolds.

Outremer effectively illustrates the historic troubles of Jerusalem and the religious multi-culturalism that came and went over the centuries before the arrival of European pilgrims and knights. And it weaves the most famous  “must-haves” of the Templar tales into the story, like the iconic image of two Templar knights sharing a horse, and the crowds whipped into a crusading frenzy, shouting Deus le volt! (“God Wills It!”). But best of all, it achieves that delicate balancing act of education and entertainment. Outremer is just plain fun to read. It puts forth the true story of the Crusades and the beginnings of the Order in a compact and exciting way, and is over much too quickly. Dafoe and Prodor have a real winner with Outremer. Four issues are planned in the series, and I’m already impatient for Issue 2, even if I know how the story turns out in the end. 

I even got bawled out by the missus for reading by flashlight under the covers.

The first issue is available at www.templarcomics.com as a stand alone book, electronic download or in a limited edition collector's set that contains a few extra goodies.

Spanish Knights Templar Sue Pope

The Telegraph.co.uk is reporting today that the Knights Templar in Spain have decided to sue the Vatican to get their stuff back:

The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ, whose members claim to be descended from the legendary crusaders, have filed a lawsuit against Benedict XVI calling for him to recognise the seizure of assets worth €100 billion (US$150 billion).

They claim that when the order was dissolved by his predecessor Pope Clement V in 1307, more than 9,000 properties as well as countless pastures, mills and other commercial ventures belonging to the knights were appropriated by the church.

But their motive is not to reclaim damages only to restore the "good name" of the Knights Templar.

"We are not trying to cause the economic collapse of the Roman Catholic Church, but to illustrate to the court the magnitude of the plot against our Order," said a statement issued by the self-proclaimed modern day knights.

And I am the real Anastasia.

Stephen Dafoe's Outremer

Friend and Brother Stephen Dafoe is seemingly indefatigable. In the last year he has published Nobly Born: An Illustrated History of the Knights Templar, one of the best introductory works to the history and legends of the medieval Knights Templar, combined with beautiful illustrations and maps.

This year, he follows it up with The Compasses and the Cross, a unique book that traces the origins and development of the Masonic Knights Templar, and separates fact from Masonic myth-making. There is literally no other work like it, and Stephen has created a book of tremendous worth to the fraternity and to others who seek to study it.

With Comic-Con going on in San Diego this week, it's appropriate to announce Stephen's latest project. It combines his love of the Knights Templar with comic books. He and Edmonton artist Bob Prodor have joined forces to create Outremer: The Saga of the Knights Templar. According to his website, Outremer's pen and ink work is complete, and is in the final stages of coloring. he is predicting a fall 2008 release date for the first of four issues.

Mice Templar Animated Film

Kidvid network Nickelodeon is producing a new cartoon movie, The Mice Templar, written by Mike Avon Oeming and Bryan Glass. According to a Hollywood Reporter story,

"Mice" is an epic about a young mouse named Karic and the prophecy that leads him to reunite the long-disbanded order of the Mice Templar, a group of mice knights.

Templar Treasure Hunters Dig In Bornholm Island Church

As we discussed in The Templar Code For Dummies, Denmark's Bornholm Island is the hot new spot for Templar treasure seekers. And apparently, some would-be Holy Grail hunters decided o dig some exploratory holes in the largest round church on Bornholm Island. As reported in the Copenhagen Post:

Stories of hidden treasures and connections to the Knights Templar inspired unknown vandals early Tuesday morning to drill two holes into the floor of Østerlars Church on the island of Bornholm, reported TV2 News.

The structure is a well-visited 12th century 'round church', of which there are four on Bornholm. But the church is especially popular among fans of conspiracy stories surrounding the Holy Grail and a possible union between Jesus and Mary Magdalen - a tale most recently made famous by Dan Brown's 'The DaVinci Code'.

Danish author Erling Haagensen's books readily connect the island's round churches to the crusading knights. He claims that the churches' symmetrical placement is part of the ongoing mystery surrounding the knights, who he claims settled on the island.

Haagensen also wrote that there was a secret chamber under the floor of the church. Geo-radar studies have confirmed that the room does actually exist, and Haagensen has suggested drilling holes in the floor to send a micro camera down to view the room.

The would-be thieves attempted to take that message to heart Tuesday morning, but it is not known whether they managed to sneak a peak at the secret room's contents.

In a recent Danish children's film, 'The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar', it is suggested that a valuable treasure is hidden in the room - possibly the Holy Grail.

Universal to make new 'Knights Templar' movie

From May 5th's Hollywood Reporter.

Universal has picked up the mantle of "The Knights Templar," acquiring a spec script by Adam Torchia and Justin Stanley, for filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov and Marc Platt to produce.

Platt will produce via his Universal-based Marc Platt Prods. while Bekmambetov, the Russian director of the "Night Watch" movies and Universal's upcoming comic-book actioner "Wanted," is producing with Jim Lemley, his partner at Bazelevs Prods.

The script, a period actioner, revolves around the Knights Templar, who fresh from the Crusades fend off an invading vampire army seeking to destroy the Holy Grail.

Vampires. And Templars. And the Holy Grail.

And vampires.

Erotic Templar Tales?!

Well, now I've seen everything.

Erotic Tales of the Knights Templar in the Holy Land, labeled as gay left-handed "literature."

Maybe the Inquisition was right.